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Amazon
In legend, a tribe of warrior-women associated with Scythians and Sarmatians, who were held to be daughters of Ares and Harmonia, a nymph of the Akmonian Wood. Brutal and aggressive, their main concern in life was war. Homer indicates the Amazons were sought out and found somewhere near Lycia, while Aeschylus (ca 523-456 BCE) places their original home near “Lake Maeotis” (the Sea of Azov), indicating they later moved to Themiscyra on the river Thermodon. Herodotus and Strabo (ca 64 BCE - 24 CE) make their home along the banks of the river Thermodon, along the south-central coast of the Black Sea. Diodorus Siculus (fl 60-30 BCE) claims their original homeland was in Lybia. The origin of Amazon is uncertain. It may be derived from the Iranian ethnonym hamazan (“warriors”), which is indirectly attested through an apparently Persian verb hamazakaran (“to make war”). The name has also been connected to the ethnonym Amazigh, related to the Berbers of North Africa. Another explanation proposes the Iranian ama-janah (“virility-killing”). Hittite research Friedrich Cornelius presumed there had been a land called Azzi, with a capital at Chajasa, in the area of the Thermodon-Iris delta, and that the name means “Woman of Azzi” (Am + Azzi). The location of that land and his conclusions are controversial, however. Among ancient Greeks, folk etymology insisted the name derived from a + mazos (“without breast”), supposing that Amazons cut off or had their right breasts burned away so as not to inhibit bowing. Ancient depictions of Amazons however always show them as two-breasted, though one is frequently covered. Greeks also used descriptive phrases for Amazons including: Androktones (“killers of men”), Androleteirai (“destroyers of men” or “murderesses”). Homer employed Antianeirai (“those who fight like men”) and Aeschylus uses styganor (“those who loathe all men”.) Apollonius of Rhodes claimed that Amazons were not gathered together in one city but scattered over the land and parted into three tribes: the Themiscyreians, the Lycastians, and the Chadesians. Their queens, Otrere and Antiope, built a marble temple for Ares on an island that was infested with ravening birds. The Argonauts passed Themiscyra on their way to Colchis, and Zeus sent Boreas to keep the Argo well off shore while the Amazons prepared for battle. In one legend, King Iobates sent Bellerophon against the Amazons, hoping they would kill him. The hero killed all the women instead. In some versions of their legend, no men were permitted to have sexual encounters with Amazons or even to reside within their country. Rather, to prevent their race dying out, Amazons visited the Gargareans one each year to beget children. This occurred over two months every spring and always at night in darkness, so the union of Amazon and Gargarean was anonymous. When the resulting children were born, Amazons kept the girls and send the boys to the Gargareans, who, not knowing which child had been sired by which man, adopted and reared them all. Diodorus Siculus has Amazon origins in Lybia, ruled by Queen Myrina or Myrinë who invaded the land of the Atlantians, destroying the city of Cerne and enslaving its people. Other Atlantians of the region, horrified by the Amazons’ ruthless violence, sued for peace and earned Myrina’s favor. She later led her people in victory against the Gorgons but ultimately led her people out of Lybia, through Egypt and Syria, to the region of the Caicus river in Aeolia. They founded several cities, including Smyrna, Ephesus, Cyme, Byrina, Sinope, Paphos, and Mitylene. In Herakles’ legends, Eurystheus charged him with obtaining the girdle of Amazon queen Hippolyta, which she had from her father Ares. Herakles was accompanied by his friend Theseus, who carried off Hippolyta’s sister Antiope. (In some versions, Theseus carries of Hippolyta herself.) As a result of this abduction, the Amazons subsequently invaded Attica and, in some versions, Antiope died fighting at Theseus’ side. Regardless of which Amazon became his bride, Theseus is agreed to have fathered a son on her, usually Hippolytus. When Priam of Troy was a young man, he joined Phrygians in their war upon the Amazons. In later life however, they took his side against the Achaeans under queen Penthesilea, who seems to have been partly Thracian by birth. She was slain in battle with Achilles. In concluding Eromenos, Ganymede makes an oblique reference to the Amazons and their most recognizable modern icon, Diana Prince (Wonder Woman), noting that entertainment spectacles like film deliberately spread knowledge classical legend, thereby keeping the gods vital.